Binabik smiled. “I fear I do not know the Aedonite saints so well, except that they are many and their statue faces are mostly frowning.”

“Can’t blame them for that, with what happened to most of ’em,” Simon said. “Lillia had a book her other grandfather gave her. Vultinia, yes, that was it—that one stuck with me. The Imperator’s soldiers cut off all her fingers but she said she could still feel God’s presence—isn’t that right, Miri?”

Miriamele shuddered. “If you say so. It’s a horrid book to give a child. Why are you asking about such a thing?”

“So I can know what day it was that I noticed about my dreams. St. Vultinia’s Day is the third day of Avrel.” He turned back to Binabik. “That means it must have been the end of Marris when I last had a dream I can remember. I went to bed late one night—the night of Isgrimnur’s funeral, I guess it was—and had a very strange one. There was a black horse in a field, and it was foaling. But the foal wouldn’t come out, and it was struggling, almost as though it was fighting not to be born. I don’t know what it could signify.” He shook his head, remembering. “And the black mare was screaming, screaming, and it was so terrible I woke up in a sweat. Do you remember, Miri?”

She shrugged. “I did not sleep well the night of Isgrimnur’s funeral, either. That’s all I remember.”

“In any case,” Simon said, “when I laid my head down again, I fell at once back into sleep, but it was like falling down a dark hole. Dark, dark, dark—but no dreams. And I swear I haven’t dreamed since.”

This sort of talk made Miriamele anxious. “Perhaps as you said, you simply don’t remember them, Simon. Sometimes I don’t remember my dreams either until someone mentions something that reminds me.”

He shook his head emphatically. “No. This is different.”

Binabik reached into his tunic and brought out a leather bag. “The last night of Marris-month. You call that Fools’ Night, do you not?”

“That’s right.” Simon smiled. “I remember thinking during the funeral that good old Isgrimnur would have enjoyed a proper All Fools’ celebration better, with drunken priests and masks and whatnot.”

“Isgrimnur was indeed a man for merrymaking and loud singing. But I think Fools’ Night is for more than merriment.” Binabik was pouring the contents of the leather bag into his hands, a pile of small, polished bones. “In the mountains we are having something much like it at the leaving of winter, a moment of changing fortune. My master Ookekuq called it so-hiq nammu ya—a ‘night of thin ice’. When the walls between this world and others are more easily crossed.”

Simon was staring at the troll’s knuckle bones with a mixture of fascination and concern. “I haven’t seen those in a long time. I thought maybe you’d stopped using them.”

“Stopped casting the bones? No. I have been teaching their use to Little Snenneq of late, though, and I do not like to tire them.”

Miriamele almost smiled at the idea of tiring out a little pile of bones. “I always wondered about those,” she admitted, “ever since I first met you in the forest. Whose bones are they?”

Binabik gave her a stern look. “Mine, of course.” He turned to Simon. “Do you mind if I am casting them for you? Losing your way to the Road of Dreams is seeming strange to me, and on such a night of thin ice, even more.”

Simon shook his head. “No. Of course not.”

Binabik rolled the clicking bones in his hand and chanted quietly to himself, then crouched and spilled them from his palm onto the stone flags. He stared at them for long moments, then scooped them up and threw again. After he had thrown and considered for a third time, he looked up. “It is a strange casting, that is all I can say now, without much thought. First it was Black Crevice, then Slippery Snow. Now for the last I see Unexpected Visitor, which we also call No Shadow. All are signs of deceit and confusion.”

“What does that mean?” Simon asked.

“Who can be saying without thought?” Binabik carefully picked up the tiny, yellowed shapes and returned them to the leather sack. He spoke a few more whispered words over it, then tucked it into his tunic. “I must consider. I will think of all that my wise master Ookekuq taught me. Unexpected Visitor I have not been seeing for many, many years. It is puzzling to me.” He stood, levering himself up with a grunt and a brief grimace. Miri, who could remember when the troll had been as swift and spry as a squirrel—when they all had been so nimble—felt a moment’s sadness. “I will also be at considering if there is something useful to be done for this not-dreaming that afflicts you, friend Simon.”

“I’m not sure it’s a kindness to give him back his bad dreams,” Miri said.

“But in the days of the Storm King’s War, there were things we could have been learning from Simon’s dreams,” Binabik told her. “Important things. Can we afford being ignorant now?”

“Not if ignorance is a risk to our people,” Simon said. “They are what matters.”

Binabik reached up and squeezed Miri’s hand. “I was teasing you before,” he said. “Just a small teasing. The knucklebones belong to me, but they are not from a person. They are the ankle bones of sheep.” He showed her his familiar yellow smile. “Do you forgive my joking, queen and friend Miriamele?”

“Oh, without doubt,” she told him, but the talk of Simon’s bad dreams had not made a disturbing day any less so.

17 White Hand

Lord, I beseech You, make my arm strong and my aim true that I may smite Your enemies.

He killed the first one easily enough, putting his arrow through the Hikeda’ya’s throat from a hundred paces downwind. By the time the white-clad figure crumpled to the snow Jarnulf was already gliding toward his second spot, keeping the wind in his face. He knew there would be a second scout, and a trained Sacrifice would be calculating the direction of the arrow even before reaching his comrade’s body.

Jarnulf had already planned the site for his next shot and reached it in a few swift steps. The second of the Norns appeared below him, moving close to the uneven, white-drifted ground, eyes little more than black lines as he scanned the spot Jarnulf had just left. Thirty feet further up the rise, Jarnulf stood behind a row of aspens and drew his bow again. Even that tiny movement caught the Hikeda’ya’s eye; Jarnulf had to hurry his shot because his target was already nocking an arrow. His shaft flew a little lower than he’d planned and caught his target in the belly, which might well kill him, but not quickly. The Norn spun and fell to his knees, then found the strength to scramble behind a mound of snow. From there he would only have a short distance to get into the cover of the forest.

Jarnulf cursed his clumsiness, then immediately regretted taking the Ransomer’s name in vain even in the midst of peril. He knew he could not wait to see if the second scout was badly injured: if the creature had the strength to escape, he might make his way back to a larger body of Hikeda’ya, then Jarnulf himself would become the hunted one. But neither could he go straight after the wounded Sacrifice soldier, because if he lost the wind his victim would scent him coming and the wounded one still had a bow. Even badly wounded, the Hikeda’ya would only need one shot to end Jarnulf’s career of vengeance against the immortals.

When he reached the next high place with a downward view, Jarnulf saw with relief that the injured Sacrifice was still crouching behind the sheltering hummock. Blood from his stomach wound was staining the snow around him . . . but not fast enough. The angle for a shot was bad, so instead of taking it and perhaps driving his enemy to cover, Jarnulf began a stealthy approach down the steep hillside. The rocks were slippery and there were points where he was completely exposed to a shot from below, but no shot came.